"It's my fault."
Looking at the boy's pleading face, The Golden Tooth lit another cigarette, shivering. Taking a deep puff, he said, "Your generation is actually far luckier than mine, because you have never seen the good days of the past, and you have long been used to the torture of purgatory. You will never be like me, tossing and turning in bed every suffocating night, recalling the past, the past, and the past.
"If you don't get it, there is no loss. If you don't have happiness, there is no pain. If you don't really live, you will have no fear of death. Ignorance is bliss, ignorance is a gift, and death is the ultimate rest.
"But now … brat, you already know. You will never forget it. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I think it's good this way. Really, thank you, boss."
Bai Xiaolu choked and said, "I'm just … I'm just too greedy. I hope that every day can be like today, with such clean water and such a peaceful environment. I hope that I can play 'Master Player' with you, boss."
"Yes, you're too greedy."
The Golden Tooth smiled. "That's impossible."
"Wouldn't it be great if time could really be turned back and yesterday could really be replayed?"
Bai Xiaolu said in a trembling voice, "Then we can replay today again and again. Regardless of the nuclear war, the wasteland, and the wasteland outside, we can always hide today and play 'Master Player'. After one game, we will play another one. It will be like this forever.
"No, it's more than that. If time can really be turned back, maybe we can stop everything. We can stop the damn nuclear war from breaking out, and we can stop all the disasters that destroy peace and destroy mankind from happening! In that case, maybe you can find your wife and child, and my mother won't die. She will lead me to my father! "
"You're drunk."
The Golden Tooth's knuckles turned white inch by inch. Suppressing himself, he said, one word after another, "Yesterday will not be replayed. Time cannot be turned back. Life is not a game. There is no reason to start again after playing a game."
"Really? You really didn't?"
Bai Xiaolu seemed to be really drunk. Her face and eyes were frighteningly red. Like a little animal that had fallen into a trap, she struggled hard and shouted, "You and my brother are both 'superhumans'. Aren't all the superhumans very powerful and capable of manipulating the four fundamental forces and even absorbing the power from the sun, the moon, and the stars? Why can't there be a superpower that can reverse time and change everything? Why?! "
"Because the mysteries of time are a hundred times more complicated, obscure, and mysterious than the mysteries of space, according to Urey's speculation, unless one can unify the four fundamental forces, namely the strong interaction force, the weak interaction force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitation force, and then push and amplify them with the 'power of the heart' so that one can fully crack and master the 'Grand Unification Theory', it is possible to see one billionth of the mysteries of time."
The Golden Tooth sighed. "That's impossible. At least, it's impossible on Earth."
"It's impossible on 'Earth'?"
Bai Xiaolu caught the key keenly. Unstoppable sharpness beamed out of her eyes. "What do you mean? If it's impossible on 'Earth', then where is it possible?"
"Well …"
The Golden Tooth shook his steaming head and hesitated for a moment. Finally, he said, "Urey is a demon, but he is also an out-and-out genius. He conducted a lot of research on the origin of superpowers in X Camp and came up with a lot of interesting speculations. One of his speculations was that superpowers came from beyond the sky, which is to say, between the stars in the universe, and that it was meteorites that brought the superpowers to Earth."
"What?"
Bai Xiaolu widened her eyes and stammered, "T-meteorites?"
"Exactly. Do you know how a full-scale thermonuclear war broke out?"
The Golden Tooth extended his fists and bumped them together. "At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the superpowers of the civilization of mankind did collide and rub against each other, even leading to a lot of small-scale conflicts and proxy wars. However, they all boasted enormous nuclear arsenals and missile defense systems, and they were in a terrifying balance of 'strategic nuclear deterrence'. None of them wanted to die together with the other party, so a full-scale thermonuclear war might not have broken out so early.
"However, on the eve of the war, a small-scale meteor shower broke into the atmosphere and attacked the missile defense bases and nuclear arsenals of the superpowers precisely, breaking the balance. Then, there was a boom, and the surface of Earth was burnt to the ground.
"Urey believes that it was the meteorites that broke the balance, or the meteorites that came from the same direction decades before, that brought something very special from the depths of the universe that slowly changed the body constitution and soul of some human beings. Eventually, the critical point was reached, and 'superhumans', or 'new humans', were born."
"How could such a thing happen?"
It was the first time that Bai Xiaolu had heard of such a theory. She found it rather strange. "But there haven't been any large-scale meteorite showers that attacked Earth in the past decades. How could a few meteorites hit the nuclear arsenals and missile defense centers of the superpowers precisely?"
"It's very strange, isn't it?"
The Golden Tooth said, "Therefore, Urey is very suspicious that the meteorites are not natural but some sort of weapon from the depths of the universe … from another civilization, another intelligent precision guided weapon.
"Urey believes that, since human beings can master superpowers to a certain extent with the pieces of the meteorites, if we can trace back to the source of the meteorites and find another civilization, it is possible that we can completely crack the mysteries of the four fundamental forces and even the grand unification theory. Who knows?"
"Therefore …"
Bai Xiaolu was excited and smart all of a sudden. "If we want to reverse time, we have to go to the depths of the universe and look for civilizations and wisdom of a higher level!"
"Don't be excited, brat. Don't be excited."
The overlord of the wasteland tried to comfort the boy. "This is just Urey's speculation. It is just nonsense that he spouted when he was extremely excited. Besides, how can you go to the depths of the universe and the end of the universe?"
"Why is it impossible?"
Bai Xiaolu looked at the chess pieces on the ground and clenched one of them so hard that it was bleeding. "As long as time can be reversed and everything can be saved, I can endure any kind of pain, and I am willing to pay any price!"
"It will be a very, very long journey."
The Golden Tooth looked at Bai Xiaolu with intense pain on his face. He shook his head and said, "Brat, you will lose a lot of things. Maybe everything."
"Do I have anything to lose?"
Bai Xiaolu looked at his bleeding palm and grinned. "Besides, as long as time can be reversed and yesterday can be seen again, everything that has been lost can be found again, right?"
…
That night, the boy had a dream again.
This time, it was a very, very good dream, so good that he did not want to wake up from it.
In his dream, the thermonuclear war did not break out. The small mountain village they lived in was full of flowers. At the foot of the mountain were colorful orchards and farmland. The air was full of fragrance.
He was separated from his brother. His brother was a handsome young man, his sister's legs were agile, and his mother was not dead or crazy. Their family sat on the mountainside and had a picnic, watching the people at the foot of the mountain work hard. His mother and his sister sang many, many songs together, while he and his brother just giggled and drank the sweet and sour fruit wine.
Ah, there was also their father. They found their father. His father was a middle-aged man who was as tall as a mountain. He had a beard and a strong smell, very much like The Golden Tooth. Of course, it was the black-haired, black-eyed, yellow-skinned version. Their father talked and laughed loudly. He also taught them to play Master of Chess. He, his brother, and their father played together.
This dream was so good that the boy subconsciously knew that it was not real, but it did not prevent the boy from leaving all the laughter and tears in the dream, in the good days of the past.
Finally, the dream was about to end.
The sun was setting in the west, dragging the boy's shadow into a long line, like a black snake.
"Don't you want it to end like this?"
Suddenly, the blurry shadow started to wriggle like a venomous snake.
"Huh?"
The boy widened his eyes and was startled.
"Do you want all this to become a reality, to really reappear yesterday, and all the joy and happiness can be endless?"
His shadow continued to ask him.
In the dream, everything seemed normal, and the boy's cowardice turned into curiosity. Bai Xiaolu asked, "Who are you?"
The shadow smiled.
For the first time, Bai Xiaolu knew that his shadow could smile, and it was so … strange.
"I am you."
The shadow said in a low and charming voice, "You after billions of years."
"What?"
Bai Xiaolu was stunned and stammered, "Billions of years later, how, how could I, how could you …"
"Don't waste time," the shadow said.
"You don't know how many lives I burned and how many planets I sacrificed to send you a message billions of years later … In the past billions of years, you and I have both done very well, but to completely reverse time and restart everything, 'very well' is not enough. We have to do better … Hey, what are you doing? I extinguished billions of stars and paid such a heavy price just to say a few words to myself billions of years ago, but you don't care at all. Are you distracted? "
"No, I'm looking at it."
Bai Xiaolu said, "Don't you see it?"
"It?"
The shadow was stunned. "What is it? I can't see it. Tell me, what is it?"
"A vulture."
Bai Xiaolu stared at the vulture in front of his eyes and couldn't help but say, "How can you not see such a big, watery vulture that looks like a cheap and coquettish vulture?"
"A cheap and coquettish … vulture with watery eyes?"
The shadow was silent for a moment. Then his voice suddenly became shrill and angry. "Tell me, what is it doing? Tell me, what is this goddamn vulture doing?"
"It is spinning in circles. It seems to be dancing. Dancing, what is it? Ballet?"
Bai Xiaolu said dutifully, "I don't know what kind of opera it is. Sorry, I can't concentrate because of its harassment. What did you say just now? You are me after billions of years. What are you doing?"
The shadow was silent for a long, long, long time.
Then, the dream broke apart in the shadow's roar.
Bai Xiaolu saw that the shadow soared to the sky and swallowed the vulture as if it were holding a sack and beating the vulture.
"You are a clingy bastard. You are a filthy and shameless cockroach. You are a sneaky bacterium. You are a shameless virus. Get out of my 'time ripples' now!"
It was the shadow's voice. For some reason, he sounded so exasperated.
Vulture was such an innocent and harmless little creature. How could you bear to be so cruel to him? Have you forgotten the oath that 'it is everybody's responsibility to protect Vulture'? Ouch, ouch, ouch. I'm dying. Help! Somebody, the flood is beating me! The flood is beating me to death! "
Bai Xiaolu did not know whose voice it was. Well, he did not really want to know, either.
Just like that, the dream was inexplicable. He woke up in a daze. He kept feeling that something was … strange.
It should have been a pure, bleak, and desperate black story.
It was a story about a boy who lost everything and became unrecognizable. He tried to look back, but he could never do so. He even forgot who he was.
However, since Vulture showed up, everything had changed.
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